My boss asked me to let a new employee stay at my place for two months (for free)

My boss asked me if I was willing to put up a new employee for two months before we moved to a new city. I live alone, like my privacy, and had never met the man before, so I said, “No way.” Still, he was moving to New York City from the Midwest, and I didn’t want to leave the guy completely in the lurch, so I thought I’d let him stay on my couch “for a couple of weeks” until he found a place. The new guy was nice, not a terrible roommate, but made little effort at finding a new place.

At the end of the second week, I (dishonestly) said I needed my apartment back in a week to host friends, and he moved out a few days later. He offered to pay, and I turned him down, figuring that if his staying over was an act of kindness on my part, and if I had to, I could more freely toss him if things went wrong. In retrospect, I wonder if accepting the money would have forced us to talk timelines, and made it easier on me when the two weeks were up.

Should I have handled this differently? What do you think?

Good (or Bad?) Samaritan

Dear Samaritan,

Firstly, it was completely inappropriate of your boss to ask you to put up this colleague for free, even if you lived in a five-bedroom apartment. Every employee has the right to keep his/her work and home life separate. I am assuming you are a man — OK, I saw the name on your email — but would he ask a female employee to put up a male colleague that she had not met? Of course, not. So he shouldn’t have asked you either. The fact that you agreed speaks volumes. For that reason alone, I’m calling it. You are a Good Samaritan.

I only have a couple of minor points, which are easy to have in retrospect. Given that you did agree to put this fellow up, I would have given him an actual end date. If you did that, then good for you. “By July 28, I need my space back. Until then, this is your home, so please ask me if you need anything.” That way, you have set a firm deadline without any excuses. Two weeks was a good compromise. You were doing him a favor, so there was no need to say you were hosting friends, even though we all tell little white lies to make awkward social situations less awkward.

Now, to the financial part: New York City is an expensive place to live and people who are passing through or visiting are often looking for a place to rest their head. It’s possible to get short-term rentals on Craigslist or Airbnb. It was very generous of you to give him a sofa. It costs $2,940 a month for a one-bedroom apartment — that’s currently the average in New York City, according to real-estate website Zumper. If you listed your shared space on Airbnb for that two-week period only, you could have put the arrangement on a more official, black-and-white footing.

There’s a difference between crashers and house guests. I used to say “Yes” to people I didn’t know very well and needed a place to crash. But now I have a “no crashers” policy because it’s my home and not a motel. I’ve had friends of friends stay, taken them out for dinner (in New York, that’s the price of a hotel room...) and, later, they’ve returned to New York, stayed in a hotel and never picked up the phone to call me. So I learned the hard way: Just say no. Close friends and family? Yes.

Either way, the company should have offered to pay for his accommodation. If it happens again, say, “Alas, no.” (I’m still working on the bluntness of just saying “No,” but I’m getting there.) You handled this situation very graciously under the circumstances by helping this colleague out.

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